But the stranger did not wait to hear all, he was already sprinkling the face of the girl, who had again lapsed into unconsciousness.
"She is not much hurt," he said at length. "See, she is reviving already." And indeed under his skilful ministrations the color had begun to return to the cheeks and lips of the injured girl.
"But she is blind," said Seth, looking up wistfully into the face of the young man, "and we have come from Egypt, seeking for the man Jesus who can heal such. A beggar told me that he was dead, but it is not true?"
The face of the stranger glowed with a smile so angelic that the lad involuntarily cried out with wonder.
"Nay," he cried, "he is not dead, he liveth forever more at the right hand of God."
Then he fixed his eyes upon the lad. "Tell me," he said gravely, "all that hath befallen thee, and how it is that ye seek Jesus in this far country."
So the lad told him all. How that their parents had passed into the regions of the dead, leaving them alone; and how for many years he had cared for his blind sister; of the man who would have sold them into bondage, and how fleeing from before his face they had first heard of the man who could heal blindness; of their awful journey in the wilderness; of their deliverance from the vultures, and their escape from the hand of Pagiel. When he ceased from speaking, the young man was silent for a space.
"Of a surety," he said at length, "the Lord hath led thee." Then raising his head he looked up into the dazzling blue of the sky.
"Thou who hast said, 'Lo, I am with thee alway even unto the end of the world,' look now upon this child who hath sought thee for healing, through weariness, and thirst, and pain, lo, these many days; and heal her, I beseech thee, by the hand of thy servant, according to her great faith."
Then stooping, while the lad held his breath with awe, he laid his hand lightly, tenderly, upon the sightless eyes of Anat. "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth," he murmured, "receive thy sight."